Cost-effective solutions for the usage of autonomous mobile robots

Currently, SMP Robotics offers more than a dozen models of robots for various purposes. Most robot models are designed to provide security and carry out surveillance.

The Security Surveillance robot Picard is ideal for AI video surveillance of outdoor areas. The Security Patrol robot Prompt can provide autonomous supervision of fence lines. The Thermal Security surveillance robot Argus is equipped with a bi spectrum video control system that can perform mobile surveillance of well-lit places in restricted areas. Models of dual-use robots have been designed based on the basic S5.2 robot model that performs autonomous surveillance and patrols. They are capable of coping with additional challenges. For example, the S5 GD Robot can take measurements of chemicals in the atmosphere. The S5 ALPR Robot is equipped with an automatic vehicle license plate recognition system. At the customer’s request, the S5 series robots can be quickly customized with additional equipment at minimum additional cost.

To protect farmland against pests, there are S4 Bird Control Robots. This series consists of three models that use different methods to scare away birds. They can all protect orchards and cultivated fields from flocks of birds in automatic mode, with little or no human intervention.

The S8 series robots are equipped with mosquito traps. With news reports of a spreading Zika virus problem, mosquitos are now bad for employee morale, business, and health. The S8 robots allow a certain area to be reliably cleansed of these dangerous, blood-sucking insects that cause discomfort for people and can carry diseases.

The S4 robot in development can conduct thermal surveys at industrial facilities. Two models of S6 series robots are also being developed that can search for gas leaks in above-ground and underground pipelines.

Currently, supplied robot models drive labor productivity with automation. This primarily includes tasks related to movement of equipment along a recurrent programmed route on open spaces.

Autonomous mobile robots are largely more cost-efficient compared to human labor, which allows for a greatly expanded list of economically feasible services. This is because most of the currently demanded services were originally offered with the cost of human labor in mind, rather than creating an affordable robot. It is also important that a single operator can manage multiple robots at the same time. Thanks to modern communication technologies, the robots’ performance can be controlled remotely. In the near future, the service market is expected to experience drastic changes, due to the increased availability of mobile robots. Soon, the most economically attractive and advantageous use for the autonomous robots will be seen in the tailor-made tasks based in the reality of our increasingly robotized global environment and its emerging brand-new markets.

The increasing use of robots to patrol large restricted areas enables a rational balance of human and robot abilities. The well-equipped robot carries out long-term surveillance, occasionally switching its position. The security officer only interferes in case of emergency. Even more attractive is the use of security robots in group-patrol mode. In this mode, robots’ movements are interrelated, allowing an entire area of a facility to be secured.

Of great interest is also the prospective use of ground mobile robots teamed with aerial drones. Using a thin cable, a ground robot can provide power to a soaring drone. This solution allows the drone to remain airborne for much longer than its own batteries would allow. This collaborative robotic system can become a base of effective solutions for high-altitude surveillance or radio broadcasting.

Autonomous mobile robots help prevent personnel health risks at workplaces with hazardous materials. Despite the use of protective hazmat suits, hazardous environmental related risks to manual laborers incur extra costs. Autonomous robots equipped with gas detectors drive down the costs of measurement and examination in hazardous environments. Mobile ground robots are indispensable to the tasks of long-term measurements on large territories, where measurement results often depend on environmental variants, such as the direction of the wind.

Cleaning snow is a tedious and time-consuming task, especially when snowfall is not heavy enough to justify the use of snow blowers, and manual labor is preferable. A mobile robot equipped with a snowplow can replace a manual laborer using a shovel. If the snow threatens to freeze through to the surface of a road or a parking lot, timely application of the robot can prevent ice build-up.

Autonomous wheeled chassis robots serve as all-purpose towing vehicles. Significant traction allows the mobile robot to confidently tow trailers designed to be moved by small garden tractors. Using the robot to tow a container with liquid grass treatment liquid compounds eliminates the need for manual labor and automates the lawn spraying process. By using different types of trailed equipment, you can make your robot highly versatile and useful while decreasing the cost of its ownership.